sanitation

As resource distribution issues grow increasingly global, so do the organizations dedicated to solving them. From the Wounded Warrior Project to Water for People, Ned Breslin has used his experience to transform how nongovernmental organizations approach issues of water and sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Since 2000, access to safe and reliable drinking water has catapulted into public awareness thanks to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Amidst a proliferation of non-governmental organizations, charities and UN initiatives, the search for truly sustainable solutions to water access and cleanliness has intensified.

Guest host Rebecca Cruise is joined by University of Oklahoma professor and European Union expert Mitchell Smith about how Greece got to its current economic crisis, and why its citizens are still on a "quest for hope."

Then Suzette Grillot talks with geographer Kathleen O’Reilly about the gender and social issues of sanitation projects in India.

Rebecca Cruise discusses Wednesday's attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris, and Joshua Landis explains Saudi Arabia’s role in the ongoing fall of global oil prices.

Later, a conversation with Jan-Willem Rosenboom. He’s a senior program officer for water, sanitation and hygiene at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and he and Suzette Grillot talk about market solutions to the sanitation crisis in developing countries.

The American non-governmental organization Water.org estimates 11 percent of the population lacks access to safe water, and that women and children spend 200 million hours per day collecting water.

Jan-Willem Rosenboom is a Senior Program Officer for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He says the organization realized they were effective at community level-work, but didn’t have good ways to deliver services on a large scale.

Joshua Landis provides an update on the ongoing removal of chemical weapons in Syria, and Rebecca Cruise examines the recent executions of high-level government officials in North Korea, and what they could mean.

Later, a conversation with a trio of scientists and engineers about how three very different developing countries share many of the same sanitation and hygiene concerns.

Despite radically different cultures, climate, geography, and levels of government involvement in improving the lives of its citizens, Ethiopia, India, and China all face similar water issues.

KGOU’s World Views host and the Dean of the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies Suzette Grillot recently gathered three engineers together for a conversation about water, sanitation, and hygiene concerns in their respective countries of expertise.